Chapter Sixteen

Gladus leans to the side, her chin resting on her fist as she watches me approach. She does not wear a dress; instead, she wears metal armor that must've been created specifically for her body. It fits her form perfectly, the metal so pure and black it almost seems like the void. Beneath the black metal plate is dark gray chainmail.

She is a woman in her forties, but now I know that doesn't mean she actually is forty-something. She could be ninety for all I know. Her black hair is pin-straight, long enough to be braided in a crown around her head, jewels inlaid in the braid. Her blue eyes are piercing, cold as ice as she glares at me from afar.

I walk toward the throne, making sure to stare her down all the while. She might frighten some and intimidate others, but not me.

It is when I stand fifteen feet away that she says, "I knew it was only a matter of time before you would come." She moves her chin off her fist and flexes both hands on the armrests of her throne as she narrows her cerulean eyes at me. "I have been waiting." Her tone is severe, commanding; I instinctively want to flinch when I hear her speak, but I stand strong.

"Sorry it took me so long," I tell her with a shrug. "But I'm here now, so we can finish this."

Gladus leans forward on her throne, her metal armor shifting as she moves. "Yes, it is far past time. This should've been finished already. You, demon, will know your place. You do not belong here. You will die in my court and I will dance on your grave." The way she says it, so plainly, like she truly believes I'm no worthy opponent, pisses me off.

"I think I'm the one who's gonna dance," I hiss through my teeth, and before she has the chance to get up, I fling a ball of sizzling light in her direction. Who said I have to play fair?

She swats the magical ball away from her with a flick of the wrist and stands. She must be a tall woman, near six feet in height, because she dwarfs me as she approaches. "You idiot girl. You toy with forces beyond your knowledge."

"Oh, yeah? And what about you, huh? What about all those people out there?" I point behind me, bringing up every single soul that died in that old colosseum. "What did they do to deserve their fate?"

"In war there must be sacrifice. War does not care whether or not its victims are innocent. War swallows all, just as it will swallow you." Gladus reaches for something on her hip: a hilt, made of black metal similar to her armor—only there isn't a sword attached.

I stand my ground. "Those people depended on you. They trusted you! And you killed them like they were nothing."

Gladus mutters, "Without death, there can be no victory."

She lifts the hilt toward the sky, and the mist clouding the skies turns black, darkening, thickening into a storm. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and she blinks. When she opens her eyes, they glow an unnatural, stormy blue. Lightning surges down from the skies, hitting the hilt, and what is left is a blade made of pure electricity.

As she lowers her magical weapon, she points it at me. A sword crackling with power, her eyes matching the glowing hue of the lightning-blade. "I will defeat you, and when I do, I will hear nothing but silence."

This time, she's the one who attacks. She lunges for me, swinging her sword madly. The air around the blade sizzles with magic, slicing through nothing in an effort to get to me. I throw up a hand and Rune activates a shield to stop her from cutting into me.

She might be tall and in full armor, but she's fast. Much faster than the two soldiers she sent to Laconia.

Although, now that I've seen her castle is empty, I wonder if those soldiers were never real to begin with, if they were simply alive from her magic. Unlike the Emperor and his guards, it looks as though Gladus is alone here.

Not that I'm complaining, because I don't need to face her and her squad of guards.

When her lightning-blade hits the shield, she's pushed back by an invisible force, and she huffs, baring her teeth at me all the while, "You think you know at a glance what has been done here? Child, you have seen nothing! You know nothing!" She sidesteps and swings at me again—and this time I duck and roll to get away from her.

"I know you're insane," I shout back. "I know you failed your people!"

She shrieks as she lunges at me again. I don't attack her directly; I trip her up by throwing a wave of magic at her feet. Gladus doesn't fall to the floor, but she does lose her steady footing. I use the opportunity to summon a ball of yellow light above her head, grow it as wide as a small car, and slam it down upon her before she can regain herself.

Oh, yeah. I'm definitely getting better at this magic stuff. It really is instinctual.

The giant ball of light collides with her, and this time Gladus does fall. She hits the stone floor with a grunt. No sooner she falls, however, does she leap back to her feet. Her eyes flash with an otherworldly glow as lightning strikes around us, sizzling the air itself.

"You will die here, demon!" Gladus shouts as a bolt of lightning hits her armor and coats it with an electrical current.

Shit. That looks badass, but having some badass armor tweaking with electricity isn't going to make me stand down.

Gladus is savage when she comes for me, unrelenting in her attacks. I can't dodge every single one. Rune does his best to protect me with a shimmering shield when he can, but even he's not infallible. She manages to slam into my arm and knock me off-balance before she swings her sword at me.

The tip of the lightning-blade cuts through the cape I wear before I can get out of the way, nicking me in the arm. Not deep enough to sever the limb or hit bone, but deep enough to send pain surging down my arm.

I move back to put some distance between us and glance at my arm. Just beneath the sleeve, a bloody, tingly gash sits, openly bleeding. "Shit," I say. I've never really hurt myself before. Done some stupid things, yeah, but this might be the stupidest. "We need to end this," I say to Rune as I watch Gladus swing her sword in the air between us, a maniacal smirk on her face. "Any ideas?"

She seems unrelenting, out of her mind, and her only goal is to kill me. Obviously, I want to stop her, but I don't know exactly how to do it. It's not like I have loads of experience dealing with crazed magical women.

Rune says, "She gets her power from the storm." As he says that, I glance up at the open ceiling, to the dark sky. Rain falls on us now, drenching both Gladus and me. "Perhaps there is a way to sever her connection to it somehow?"

Sever her connection to the storm? I don't see how the hell I can do that without getting rid of the storm itself—and since I don't have that kind of power, it might not be possible.

Gladus is on me again, and this time I summon my own blade of magic, one of bright, sizzling white, and with Rune's help, I use it to deflect her blows. My body moves in ways it never moved before, my inner swordswoman coming out. I parry, I dodge, I sidestep; I've never picked up a sword in my life, but with Rune guiding me and helping with my reflexes, it's almost easy.

Sever her connection to the storm. Get rid of the storm. I don't see how I can possibly do that… although, Gladus isn't the only one with magic. The storm isn't a natural one. Maybe I can fight magic with magic, like I'm doing with her sword.

Fuck. It's a long-shot, but it's the only thing I can think of.

"You will not triumph here," Gladus hisses as our magical blades collide, a small shockwave emanating from their contact. "Evil dies today."

I push back from her as I say, "That's something we can agree on." Before she can come at me again, I fling my arm up to the sky and send the magical sword straight up. It propels itself with an invisible, impossible force, dividing the rain and the thunder as it soars straight up into the clouds.

The moment the sword pierces the dark sky, I can feel it in my core. Magic at war. That sword, though separated from me, is still connected to me, and I close my eyes as I imagine the power within the blade expanding to the point where its only relief is to explode.

A loud rumble echoes in the sky, and when I open my eyes I see Gladus about to attack. Her lightning-blade is only two feet away from me, but the sky above us turns blinding. A brilliant, vivid white overtakes the dark gray clouds, and the rain around us sparkles like diamonds. It's almost impossible to see, but I manage.

Gladus, however, does not. She wails as she crumbles to her knees, dropping her electrical blade as she seeks to cover her eyes. The blade disappears, nothing more than a hilt, and the electrical current that ran along her armor is gone. Her armored hands tremble, and the sounds she makes are that of a madwoman.

"No," she cries, "this cannot be. I am Gladus, Empress of Pylos. I cannot—I will not…" She lowers her hands away from her eyes, and I see that they no longer glow with the storm. They're normal blue eyes once again, though they're the opposite of lucid as she gazes at me.

The storm clouds are now mine, rumbling with the need to expel one last bolt. The rain still falls, each drop blinding in their own right. It's hard to look at Gladus, at her slumped figure before me—in more ways than one.

"You," she whispers, "have come to annihilate us all." That is the clearest, sanest sentence she spoke this entire time. Her eyes close. Gladus, for all the bravado she holds, must accept her fate.

I exhale, and when I do, one last bolt of lightning comes down from the sky—only this time the bolt is mine. Less electrical, more solid. Not bluish but a yellowish-white. It surges down above Gladus's head, and in the next moment it stabs her in the back, too solid to be absorbed by her.

Her hunched-over figure shakes and her eyes flash white. The lightning fades, as does the clouds above us. What's left of the rain falls, no longer sparkling and blinding. With nothing but blue sky over our heads, Gladus starts to disappear before my eyes.

Her skin pales, grows wispy. The process is slower than it was for the sick animals I encountered before, but the end result is the same.

Gladus is on her knees before me, a bloody hole in her armor. She lifts a hand toward me, even as that hand and the arm it's attached to starts to disappear, fading to ash. "I'm sorry," she whispers, her strong voice spoken. "Tell her… I'm sorry I could not fight harder."

I don't know what she means by that, or who she's talking about, and I don't ask.

The warrior empress smiles as she shuts her eyes and leans her head back to let the sun hit her. "Silence. Finally, after all this time—" She doesn't say anymore, because after that she's nothing but ash in the wind.

I'm seconds from saying how close of a call that was when something hits me. Something invisible slams right into my chest and nearly knocks me off my feet. The mark on my wrist sizzles, and I'd be lying if I say it's not painful.

I fall to my knees as I grab my forearm, grimacing as I stare at the tattoo. It's glowing, but Rune's not talking and I'm not using magic, so how—

The pain abruptly halts, and when the tattoo's glow fades, I find it has expanded, traveled down my arm further, all the way to my elbow now. My eyes widen as I study it. "What…" I can't say more, because right then the mark glows.

And small sparks of bluish lightning dance across my fingertips.

"It seems you absorbed Gladus's power," Rune remarks. "How fortuitous. That might help in the long run."

I turn around and aim at the wall-less side of the room, flicking my fingers toward the opening. A bolt of blue lightning surges out from my fingertips.

Holy shit. I leveled-up. I don't even need to summon a storm to use it.

Just to make sure I can still use my golden magic, I try to bring forth a small ball of light with my other hand. Just to, you know, make sure it's not all electrical power now. A ball of light forms above my left hand, no larger than a softball.

Shit. Two kinds of magic. How cool is that?

I let the bright ball dissipate as I turn around and face the area where Gladus vanished. All that's left is her sword's hilt, and I move towards it and pick it up. The metal is a grayish black depending on how the light hits it, and much heavier than it looks.

I bet Kretia would recognize this. It's the only way she'll ever believe I killed Gladus.

The thought hits me as the pain from the slice in my arm reminds me of the same: I killed Gladus. I killed her. Sure, she may have deserved it, but that doesn't change the fact that I was the one who did it.

With the hilt in my hand and blood dripping down my arm, I shuffle out of the wet throne room and head toward the door that opens out into the stone stairs. I go down, step by step, in a daze, after grabbing my satchel.

I don't know how far down the steps I am when the weight of what just took place, of what I just did, becomes too much. I freeze, and suddenly it's too much for my shoulders to bear. Without a word, I sink down to my ass and sit on the stairs.

My now-larger tattoo lights up as Rune asks, "Are you all right, Rey?" For once, he sounds gentle, like he really does care about the answer.

"I… I don't know," I answer him honestly. The hilt in my hand feels too heavy, the stinging cut on my upper arm a reminder of what I just did. Not once in a million years did I ever think I'd become a killer, but that's what I am now.

I don't like it. I don't like it at all. That's not who I want to be.

"Listen to me," Rune says, though the intensity in his voice is diminished somewhat by the fact that he's not here physically. "You did what you had to. Killing Gladus stopped her from hurting anyone in Laconia ever again. What happened to Prim won't happen to anyone else. You did what no one else in this kingdom could. You saved them, Rey."

"Did I?" I ask with a frown. "As far as I know, there's still an empress in Magnysia and that jerk of an emperor in Acadia."

"True, but remember the emperor wanted your help. Perhaps we should go to him, show him the hilt, and see if ridding the kingdom of Gladus is enough to help him off the throne." His suggestion makes sense, but… no.

I shake my head and stand. "No, I need to go back to Laconia and make sure Prim is all right."

"Fair enough. After, then, we can return to Acadia and see the… jerk, as you put it."

As I leave the castle, as I leave the small village inside the castle's outer walls, I don't say a word more. I'm too trapped in my own head, too worried about where this could lead next. I have the feeling this kingdom won't want me to stop with one empress.

Gladus said I'm here to annihilate them all. At the rate I'm going, it might be true.